Seven Guatemalans who alleged that they had been the subject of non-consensual human medical experimentation by the US Public Health Service (PHS) in the 1940s appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday. The Guatemalans’ suit was dismissed in June because the court [...]
England and Wales have decided to abolish the centuries-old contempt of court law , which historically has protected judges from slander and libel. David Omerod , a commissioner for the Law Commission which reviews laws in England and Wales, stated that the contempt of court law was obsolete and unnecessary to deal with instances in [...]
California officials have expressed doubt about the state’s ability to comply with a court order to reduce its prison populations by 2013. California prison officials had asked the court to allow them to retain 6,000 more inmates than the original court order had determined, saying the state would comply with the “spirit of the order” [...]
The UN envoy for Somalia on Monday urged the east African nation to end a “culture of impunity” that threatens press freedom in the wake of the killings of two journalists. Augustine Mahiga , the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, declared that freedom of the press is crucial for Somalia as it struggles [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Robert C. Blitt of the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Law argues that legislation recently introduced in Tunisia proposing to criminalize blasphemy underscores a pattern in predominantly Muslim countries that the US and other countries should contest in an effort to protect international human rights norms…
Head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) on Monday expressed concern about the growing number of civilian casualties in violent clashes between government forces and armed opposition groups. UN Military Adviser, Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye, told reporters he was disappointed with conduct on both sides of the conflict, criticizing the government for using [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a case dealing with a parent’s ability to sue for custody in the US when a court has determined that the child’s normal residence is in another country, and the child has already left the US. In Chafin v. Chafin , US Army sergeant Jeffrey Lee [...]
Leaders of political opposition in Kuwait on Sunday criticized the government’s efforts to change the country’s election law through the Constitutional Court, saying the government is attempting to seize power through the court in violation of the constitution. The government announced last week that they had asked the national Constitutional Court to review the legality [...]
A Bahrain court has sentenced a man to two years of imprisonment for making defamatory comments about a wife of the Prophet Muhammad . The 19-year-old man allegedly posted offensive comments on a website that insulted Muhammad’s wife Aisha. The Bahrain Information Affairs Authority (IAA) announced on Sunday that the man had been found guilty [...]
Ending discrimination against women is necessary to fix the problem of global poverty, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday. Speaking before the World Congress of Global Partnership for Young Women in Seoul, South Korea, Ban declared that while women around the world have made tremendous advances in fields such as business, law and government, laws [...]
